


Krummavisur

by Mad_Max



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Max/pseuds/Mad_Max
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Mistaken for dead on the battlefield, lost to his family and his men, Faramir son of Denethor finds himself under the care of a mysterious stranger who goes by the name of Strider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Krummavisur

**Author's Note:**

> Just transferring whatever is worth saving from my ff.net fics (this is one of the only fics worth saving). I need to go back and rewrite this at some point; it's three years old, and my writing style has changed slightly over that time, but whatever.

Nouns were the thing, thought Faramir. He had yet to put any research into nouns, having spent the past several weeks of his spare time pouring over various interpretations of Sindarin grammar structure. Boromir's deep bellylaughs drifted across the table, tearing the boy from his musings. He focused half-heartedly on the conversation, tucking his thoughts away, and stabbed his knife into a particularly fatty slice of beef. There was no animosity between the boys, despite their father's ever-increasing affection for the eldest and cold indifference towards the other. And yet, Faramir thought, he would not have minded his father listening to him so raptly, with such love glowing in his eyes and mirth on his lips as he shared his interests in history and music. But to have an audience on the subject of language, on the tales of Isildur and the fairytale-like elves that his mother had sparked an adoring fascination in - he would not have minded that at all.

It was a silly thing to wish for, Faramir knew. A childish fantasy; his father had long since made quite clear that the Steward of Gondor was a busy man with very limited time for laughter or warmth, and what little he did possess was too small a reserve to be shared by both boys. Boromir, as eldest and the professed favourite son, inherited all of that attention. He occupied himself with memorised strings of elvish poetry instead, his knife carving abstract patterns into the potato and broiled beef as Boromir and the Steward chuckled over old barracks jokes. Perhaps if he remained silent long enough, Faramir mused, he might be able to win himself an excuse to return to his rooms and finish his notations on the past participle.

"Hold your fork properly, Faramir." His father's voice, ever cold and edged with stone, as though it drew its deep treble from the walls of the Citadel itself, drew Faramir's eyes from his plate.

"Yes, Father."

As quickly as the attention had turned on him, so it swung back to the subject of the military and recent Corsair attacks on the coastal villages. Faramir found his attention waning once more, his grip round the cool metal of the fork slipping. Patience was more than a virtue at dinners such as these. With his brother occupied and the conversation firmly stuck on matters that neither concerned nor interested him, it became a necessity. Enveloped in his thoughts, he counted the minutes passing, the amount of times Boromir referred to killing something, the breadrolls and sprouts of broccoli on their plates. In time the entire affair would come to a close, with Denethor excusing himself to his office and Boromir returning to his younger brother's rooms to chat over a mug of strong tea. It was the promise of this visit alone that kept Faramir's mouth shut and his eyes on his untouched food. Their time together grew shorter the older they became. For Boromir, the constant demand of Easterling attacks and spats with rogue bands of Southron soldiers meant that he was rarely in the Citadel and disinclined to take letters from home, while Faramir found himself struggling to stretch his shortly-supplied spare time over the gaps left between gruelling weekdays of training at the military academy and weekends in the Citadel. He set his fork on the table and reached for the wine.

Boromir had launched into a re-enactment of a conversation he had held with a rude beermaiden the night before. Faramir counted the action verbs and the predicates. What was the Sindarin equivalent of "breast"? Fifteen minutes - twenty, thirty at the latest - and he would have Boromir all to himself. Half an hour, and he could return to his rooms in peace and regal his brother with the stories he had kept locked away in the back of his mind, lest he slip and share one with his father, who no doubt would brush them off as banal and a waste of time. They would laugh, Boromir and he, snort into their tea and giggle on the balcony at the goings-on below. When the night grew chill and the fire flicked weakly in the grate, Boromir would claim exhaustion and make to excuse himself to bed but linger. It was the nighttime ritual, an unspoken nudge for Faramir to feign a headache or some other malady so that the older boy would have a reason to stay with him longer. All week he had been looking forward to it, and now that the moment was nearly upon them he found his appetite non-existent. To his left, the Steward had pulled back his chair to allow for the dessert to be set down.

Soon, whispered an impatient little voice in the back of his head. So soon. No more than twenty minutes more and he could leave this tedium. Grinning to himself, he made to push back his own chair to make way for the dish of fruit and cakes. His elbow caught the edge of the fork that had been laid to rest on the very edge of the table. It fell with a heady clatter that echoed round the large room and drew the eyes of all present to his flushed cheeks and narrowed eyes. Hoping vainly that the mishap would go unremarked upon, he stooped to pick it up.

Denethor had turned his gaze on the bowl of strawberries by his left arm, but Faramir could feel the depthless, grey eyes boring into his forehead as vividly as if they had been fixed on him. "If you cannot hold your silverware properly," began the lord slowly in the same dry tone he used to reproach the servants for small breaches in protocol, "you have no place at this table."

The room had fallen silent. His cheeks seared with the flush of blood. His skin smarting, Faramir licked his lips and nodded quietly. "Yes, Father."

"You may leave."

As calm as the deep voice was, as disinterested as the man appeared, there was no denying the dismissal in his waved hand and raised eyebrows. In the depths of Faramir's gut a protest churned. He bit it back, as usual, and rose jerkily to his feet.

"Goodnight, Father - " Long legs were a curse, truly, always tangling themselves round chair legs and catching the edges of the table. " - Boromir." His shoulders slumped; he hung his head, anxious not to catch Denethor's eye.

"Faramir," intoned Denethor, just as Faramir's pubescently large feet reached the doorway. He stopped short, his heart sinking. "Let us have a chat after dinner, you and I."

 

* * *

How he hated this room. Everything about it was harsh and cold and dark, from the heavily polished stone of the walls, to the vast oaken desk, to the scowl stretching his father's thin lips. Faramir shifted uncomfortably in the hard-backed chair, bottom lip wedged firmly between his teeth as the Steward stared. How he loathed being regarded in this way. His father's eyes narrowed onto the stretch of pale skin between brow and hairline, the creases in his brow and around his mouth lined with distaste. It was the sort of stare Faramir imagined one might use when regarding an insect that refused to be squashed.

Denethor moved to arrange his robe about him, and Faramir's spine stiffened. These office visits unfailingly followed the same pattern, a tradition of sorts. More often than not, the robes were simply adjusted so as to allow the man to sit comfortably as he tore into his youngest son's confidence. But, if they were removed - if his father stood to hang them from the hook on the wall, he was doomed. Stomach flip-flopping, he would be instructed to stretch himself over the front of the desk while the Steward made his way round with the reedy cane of polished yew that was reserved especially for these rare occasions.

He watched with bated breath as the man loosened his collar.

"I do not understand, Faramir," began his father at length.

For a moment it seemed as though he was hovering on the verge of another sentence. Faramir shifted again, and when several moments had passed and still nothing was said, intoned softly, "My lord?"

The use of the formal title was not lost on Denethor. "You look alike to Boromir, and yet..." He paused, but the remainder of the statement hung in the air between them like a bad smell.  _And yet, you are so unlike Boromir_. What could a scholarly string bean of a youth possibly have in comparison to the heir of the Stewardship? "Your instructors tell me you have trouble with the longsword and are distracted during your lessons; you are so silent and uninspiring at dinner, one has to look twice at you to realise you are there at all. You cannot hold a fork without making some mess, and when I ask you for an explanation I get nought but blank stares and murmurs." His bushy eyebrows, like black caterpillars over the narrowed gaze, flew almost to his hairline. "Well?"

What was the Sindarin for  _embarrassment_? Faramir started. "I'll try harder, Father." The words, so familiar by now that they slipped from his tongue without thought, tasted slimy and metallic in his mouth. At least once each week he was summoned to one of these late-night "chats", and each week he sat, red-faced and distracted, as Denethor recited the long list of faults that separated him from the pedestal that Boromir had been set upon. The dressing-down always ended with a long-suffering sigh from the Steward and faltered promises of better behaviour in the future from the black-haired boy on the other side of the desk. Faramir's eyes found the manicured surface of the floor and fixed themselves there, his cheeks flushed red as he worked on chewing his bottom lip into a pulp.

Denethor frowned. "You will try, Faramir." He allowed a moment for the boy's eyes to meet his own before continuing icily, "You will try, and you will fall short, and I am fast losing my patience with you."

There it was, at last, that acid edge that sharpened each word like the edge of a sword. The rosy tint in Faramir's cheeks swelled across his nose and forehead. His eyes felt too heavy of a sudden; holding his father's gaze was a battle in itself as the muscles attempted to redirect themselves to the floor again. No matter how many times he heard these words and others like them, no matter how many long nights he had spent in this office, with that inscrutable glower boring into forehead, the blush and the sting always returned to his cheeks. Too small his skin felt, pulled as it was over his lanky limbs and crestfallen face. Digging deep into the bowels of his stomach for the composure to form a response, he said miserably, "I do not mean to be a disappointment to you."

There was no judging his father's reactions in times such as these. The Steward's emotions were as much a gamble as the lottery played amongst those in the lower circles of the city and surrounding farming villages. Armed with nought but the knowledge that, at the very least, his father was still wearing his robe and had not made any move to retrieve the cane, Faramir could do little else but wait on the edge of his seat for a flash of anger, a tinge of remorse, or for the man to simply grow bored and dismiss him to his rooms.

It was the waiting that flustered him more than anything. The sharp tongue he had become accustomed to. The barbs were commonplace, and the Steward's displeasure was hardly a stranger. No, it was the slow passage of time as he restrained himself from bursting out with wild apologies and excuses, the way the seconds ticked past on the clock above the mantel and his father's frown deepened still. Waiting drove him to a distraction that stole the joy even from his language-matching game. A minute more and he would have been on his feet, when finally Denethor spoke.

"I had thought your time in the academy might sort you out - had hoped, rather, that you might return to me as competent and worthwhile as Boromir, but I was mistaken."

Faramir's heart was in his feet. This was a new addition to the usual spiel.

"Clearly," added Denethor, spitting the word across the table, "Clearly, I was mistaken. You share none of your brother's love for your country, for if you did, you would surely have invested yourself as completely as he has into its protection. While Boromir risks life and limb keeping  _our lands_  safe, you lock yourself away in the study with your poetry and elvish lore; you care nothing for Gondor, for your father, but for that confounded Grey Wanderer and his fairytales - if it were up to you, we would all be sitting idly, locked away in a library, pouring over dusty tomes as this country falls to ruin."

The protests died in his throat. Even as he formed them, Faramir knew it was useless. He shook his head silently, chewing his top lip.

"You have disappointed me, Faramir." The weariness in his father's voice was alarming. Never before had a sentence sounded so cracked and folded, as wrinkled as a bit of old parchment as it fled the Steward's tongue. "I have obviously been too lenient with you." Denethor paused, as if to allow his words to sink in, and then ploughed on, "Too lenient, too soft. You live in luxury while others your age serve their country in the fens of Near-Harad with little such comfort; I can teach you nothing if you do not wish to learn."

"I do, Father!" The cry peeled itself from his throat before he could stop it. Faramir rose, his clenched fist coming down to rest atop the desk as he gaped at the man in distress. Wherever this talk was headed, he did not like the sound of it. This was less a reprimand and more a resignation. A resignation to what? he wondered. Was he to be shipped off to the Harad to fight and hopefully meet his end upon the curved blade of a Southron? Marched to the borders of the hostile Easterlings' lands and tossed into battle after battle until he expired and ceased to be his father's problem? His mouth dry, he turned to the man with wide eyes and begged, "I want only to please you, sir, and yet how can I when everything I do is so  _wrong_  in your eyes? I don't  _try_  to trouble you, Father, and sometimes it seems..." The words caught in his throat.

Denethor bared his teeth in an unamused smile and gestured. "It seems?"

Steeling himself, he braved on in softer tones, "It seems you seek to find some fault in me when none is there, sir."

For a long while there was silence between them. The room was thick with it. The Steward, his cold gaze fixed unmovingly on Faramir's clenched fist, said nothing. The boy, his chest heaving and cheeks stinging with the aftershock of having finally expressed himself, could not bring himself to carry on. Each, cavernous tick from the clock on the mantle was like a blow to Faramir's stomach. He waited with bated breath, his fingernails digging half-moon patterns into the soft flesh of his forearms as Denethor frowned and sat and still said nothing.

A long, low  _whoosh_  of air expelled itself from the Steward's lungs. At length, he met Faramir's anxious frown with an inexpressive one of his own and grit out, "If you find your father's company so loathsome, Faramir, it is probably for the best, then, that you join Boromir on his patrols along the Poros. Do not look at me that way - there is little else left to me at this point. If it is determined you are to prove to me how much I have failed you as your father, then go, by all means, and make your point on the end of some Southron's sword." He licked his lips, rose to his feet, straightened his robe. Faramir's heart raced. "You think me harsh. Do not deny it, Faramir; it is written across your face. I am not being harsh with you, nor is it my wish to see you hurt. You are my son, however wayward and distracted, but do not be mistaken in assuming that a cowardly, lazy son is of any greater use to me than a dead one."

On these parting words, the Steward of Gondor swept imperiously out of the room, his long robes swinging behind him. He had grown recently, and yet Faramir felt little taller than a dwarf as the candles flickered in their brackets round him, the furniture glaring out largely and imposingly as his father's words rang ominously in his ears.

 

* * *

 

Sleep did not find him easily that night. Tossing and turning between blankets that seemed one moment too thick, too stifling, and the next hardly there at all, he fought to keep his breathing even and his head clear. Shipped off. Gone. The cold, stark apartments that had so often to him felt like more a prison than a home were suddenly warmer, softer. They were comfortable, and they were his, and he desperately did not want to leave them.

Faramir knew he was being a coward. His entire life he had been in love with Gondor. The crowded streets of Minas Tirith, the grey seas near Dol Amroth, the woods of Ithilien - they were as much a part of him as his left foot, and gladly would he have given himself to their preservation. And yet, he thought, the idea of perishing in some distant, dusty little corner of the country was hardly an attractive one. He was not a soldier as Boromir was. Not unskilled, but inhibited all the same by his whirling thoughts and the seizing stiffness in his chest at the idea of killing another living being.

The border patrols were not a death sentence to a decent soldier. Was he a decent soldier?

He tossed onto his side, grimacing into his pillow.

Father certainly did not seem to think so. On the other hand, the instructors at the academy, though often frustrated by his quiet demeanour and lack of what they called "his brother's zeal", had all conceded that the second son of the Steward was as good a soldier as any, once he managed to gather his thoughts. Skilled enough with a sword, better with a longbow, he would be far from a liability on the battlefield. But, was he good enough? Did he want to be good enough?

A small, sour bit of the very back of his mind thought it might simply be better to die. Even were he to return to the Citadel with wagons of enemy corpses and blood on his sword, Denethor would be displeased. He would always be displeased, because nothing that Faramir did would ever be as impressive as it had been the first time, when Boromir did it.

He turned again, tearing the heavy coverlet off as his forehead beaded with sweat. Negativity would not get him anywhere tonight. Blinking, he settled himself at the foot of the bed and willed sleep to swallow him whole, envelope him in peaceful dreams and never let go.

By dawn Faramir had given up his search for rest and propped himself up by the window instead, a book of Númenorean folk tales in one hand, his eyes on the rising sun. There was a low knock on the door as one of the scullery maids, Magathea, came to bring him his breakfast and a bowl of cool water to bathe in. He ignored it. The very idea of food brought his churning stomach to a heave. Perhaps if he was silent long enough, Magathea would assume he was still asleep and return to the kitchens, leaving him in peace. For several moments there was nothing but the gentle tick of the clock atop the mantle and the chirp of morning sparrows on the ledge below his window. Faramir sighed and settled back against the wall, his grey eyes closing wearily.

He had just made himself comfortable when Magathea pounded the door again, this time far more persistently, and hissed in a voice far too deep to have been her own, "Open up, you little weasel! I know you're not asleep in there!"

Struggling to his feet, he made a dash for the door and all-but landed on Boromir in a splay of gangly arms and legs. There was something inexplicably comforting about his brother's presence that Faramir had always been rather ashamed to own up to. The childish urge to cling to the older man seized his heart. He settled, instead, for the corner of his bed and turned to regard Boromir with wide eyes as the other snapped the door shut behind him.

"You could have at least had a nap," chided the man gently as he frowned over Faramir's dark circles and drawn face. "It is a long ride to Poros."

Faramir said nothing. Boromir's well-meaning rebukes were more difficult to bear than his father's constant disapproval, for how did he explain his frayed nerves and the dread that pitted itself at the bottom of his stomach like a large stone, weighing him down? There was no excuse for such behaviour. As a son of Gondor he should be nothing less than pleased to take an active hand at last in her protection, and yet the fear nagged at him still; the foreboding idea that he would never return home again had deeply rooted itself in his mind over the night.

Large, rough hands circled his face, closing over his ears and knitting themselves in his thick hair. Boromir's eyes found his. "What's wrong, little brother?"

The low, soft voice all but broke him. Pulling away, Faramir turned to stare at the window. His lip trembled; his hands, for lack of anything better to do, plucked absently at a loose thread dangling from the hem of his shirt. After a pregnant pause, he mustered the breath to say shyly, "Worry birds have laid all the heaviest stone eggs in my stomach this morning."

Boromir lay a hand on his shoulder and sighed, long and low. "The border patrols are rarely so dangerous, Faramir. And you shall be at my side until we return to the Citadel."

They stood in uneasy silence, pretending to be interested in the colour-smeared sky as the sun rose to take its place among the clouds and soaring birds.

"Think of it as a camping holiday for a few months - fortnight after fortnight without Father or the military academy," said Boromir with forced cheerfulness, clapping the boy on the back. Faramir started and shifted away from the touch. How could he explain to his brother the panic that seized his throat at the very idea of leaving home? It was an irrational fear, one that he did not fully understand himself. The familiar surroundings of his apartments felt suddenly extremely significant. The colours, the comfortable furniture, the small collection of leather-bound books and dog-eared notes jumped out at him from the background, painfully poignant. He would never see his room in this state again, Faramir knew. How could he explain his premonition without sounding cowardly and frightened and humiliatingly childish? Though he entertained his younger brother's temperament with far more patience than Denethor did, Boromir would not understand.

Outside, the rest of the city were awoken to a dull clanging from the belfry. At once the birds began to chirp a happy morning tune. Carts clacked across the uneven cobblestones and infants whinged for their breakfasts while men dressed themselves clumsily in darkened bedrooms, tying their hair back and unenthusiastically preparing for another day of work. If he listened closely enough, Faramir fancied he could make out the individual snores and drowsy breakfast table conversations, the smack of a woman's lips against her husband's cheek as she kissed him goodbye for the day, the chink of pewter spoons against porcelain bowls and scuffles across wooden floors as children protested being torn from their warm beds and sent off on the mornings' chores. He pressed his forehead against the cool stone of the wall, his shoulders squared and stiff against Boromir's large, warm hands.

"I'd rather not have any camping holiday, if it meant Father would have me stay here. I'm frightened, Boromir - " He swung round suddenly, his saucer-like gaze falling on the other with urgency. "I shouldn't be. I don't mean to be, but I am all the same."

The vague smile that had occupied his brother's lips and light eyes melted off like an ice cube in a fire pit. From earliest childhood, Faramir had been assumed the weaker of the Steward's two sons. Slighter, paler, markedly shier and quieter, he had always lacked the confidence that Denethor so devotedly instilled in his eldest. The confidence to fight, to share his opinions, to assert himself Faramir rarely showed, but it existed. Boromir had never held any stock in the belief that his younger brother was somehow inferior, or weaker, or any less worth the trouble than he was himself. He alone had seen the flash of cunning in the three year-old boy's eyes as he laid a trap of pillows and building blocks for his unwitting nurse. He had held the hand of the five year-old boy who stood steadfast at the side of his dying mother without so much as batting an eyelash, had watched his brother stand still, chin held up in defiance as he was torn to pieces by their father's criticisms. Smaller and bookish Faramir might have been, anxious and prone to second-guess his every move he was, but frightened - never.

In a single, swift movement Boromir closed the gap between them. His lips drew themselves into a thin line beneath the furrowed brow. "What are you frightened of? The patrols are rarely threatened by more than a few, small bands of orcs. We are in more danger of undercooked meat with dinner than from any of them. What worries you?"

The words tasted stale in the back of Faramir's throat. They scraped his tongue and teeth, sticking to his lips with all of their strength before tumbling out in a nervous jumble. "I feel that if I leave - " He swallowed hard. The moment Boromir knew what it was that ailed him, Faramir would lose his brother's respect forever, he knew. Who could possibly hold in esteem a seventeen year-old scarecrow of a boy who was petrified by what could only have been a premature case of homesickness? "When I leave," he corrected, his eyes drifting back towards the window to watch a sparrow take its place on the nearest bush, "I'll not return. Not here, not anywhere."

The sigh that swept itself from off his brother's tongue ruffled the fringe of Faramir's dark hair. Falling against the arm that fixed itself round his shoulder, he pressed his ear against the taller man's chest and closed his eyes against the comforting rumble of the familiar, booming voice as Boromir consoled, "Don't be daft, Faramir. In two months' time you will be riding Einfari back through the gates of the city with blood on your sword and a grin on your face; you'll be so proud of yourself I expect you'll be unbearable for weeks." Nudging the boy with his shoulder, he pointed out the fresh clothes that had been set out at the foot of the large bed. "Now, forget about being frightened for a moment, little brother, and hurry up and get dressed; we leave within the hour!"

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title for this comes from an Icelandic folk song about a raven who is hungry in winter and finds a dead sheep on the ice. At the end he calls his raven friends to come and "feast on cold ice".


End file.
